| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: the only man in the world who could furnish here any detail of the
test-mark--by HONOURABLE means. I have finished."
There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the
mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions
of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.
Wilson sat down victorious. The house submerged him in tides of
approving applause; friends swarmed to him and shook him by the hand
and congratulated him, and Billson was shouted down and not allowed
to say a word. The Chair hammered and hammered with its gavel, and
kept shouting:
"But let us proceed, gentlemen, let us proceed!"
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: wishing to lend her ear to the music of a second wedding, for which
she was praised by all good people, who knew not that she had a
husband in her heart, a life in hope; but she was the greater part of
her time a widow in fact and widow in heart, because hearing no news
of her lover at the Crusades, the poor Countess reputed him dead, and
during certain nights seeing him wounded and lying at full length, she
would wake up in tears. She lived thus for fourteen years in the
remembrance of one day of happiness. Finally, one day when she had
with her certain ladies of Touraine, and they were talking together
after dinner, behold her little boy, who was at that time about
thirteen and a half, and resembled Rene more than it is allowable for
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: off.
They met the returning husbands, who turned about and joined
in the hunt for the missing child. Along the shore of the lakes,
among the high-grown reeds, they looked in vain. He was nowhere to
be found. After many days and nights the search was given up. It
was sad, indeed, to hear the mother wailing aloud for her little
son.
It was growing late in the autumn. The birds were flying high
toward the south. The teepees around the lakes were gone, save one
lonely dwelling.
Till the winter snow covered the ground and ice covered the
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